Wednesday, December 17, 2008

I did this scrapple video recipe for my America food site on About.com, and decided to make a couple minor changes to the original recipes - like leave out the main ingredient.

Scrapple, a Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast staple from days gone bye, is basically a bunch of hog scraps (you don't want to know) bound together with a cornmeal mush. Once cooled, it's sliced, fried, and "enjoyed."

This more user-friendly variation uses polenta as the binding agent, and is studded with pieces of pork you can actually identify and would eat on purpose, like pork shoulder and ham. This is the perfect day-after-pork-roast breakfast.

Now that I've guaranteed a flood of email and comments from insulted Pennsylvania Dutchmen who swear by the heirloom recipes, I will say this slightly usual morning side dish is quite tasty with a couple eggs, and certainly fills you up for a long day of doing whatever they do all day in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Enjoy!

25 comments:

OMG, my family loves scrapple. I never even thought about making it myself. We used to get such great scrapple in NJ, but in Florida, it's almost unheard of. We buy what they have down here, which is the frozen variety, and is ok but not great.

I know my dad would never go through this to make it, but I would make it and give it to him to cook. We're all about the original stuff. Fried up nice and crisp on the outside with some ketchup or hot sauce, a couple of eggs, hell yeah! Thanks Chef!

Looks great. I'm usually all in favor of leaving traditional recipes alone, as most "updates" tend to change the healthiness factors quite a bit.

THAT SAID, this looks like a very edible and more appetizing modernization of a classic breakfast recipe. And, the modernization doesn't detract from the original "umph" at all -- assuming that your polenta uses corn soaked with lime.

Anything made from ground corn is technically "cornmeal" Polenta is a cornmeal, grits is a cornmeal, cornmeal is a cornmeal. But, what I was saying is supermarket cornmeal is ground much finer than a package of Italian polenta. As far as using them in certain recipes, like scrapple, or under pizza, they are not exactly the same thing.

I love your site! I wanted to let you know that you accidentally left the "r" out of scrapple in the title "Taking the Scrap out of Scrapple" (and twice more in the text further down). I've got my mother hooked on your site now, too! Keep up the great work!

That's actually an ancient technique called Nixtamalization (pronounced neesh-tah-mall). Ancient Native Americans would first soak their harvested corn with wood ash (an alkaline). This made the corn softer, helped to remove the skins, and made it generally more digestable (and nutritious!).

I don't know if commercial corn is treated this way (with lime) or not.

Hi Chef John, I have never blogged, and I am not blogging about the scrapple but to complement you on your excellent and fun videos and really good site. I am super enjoying it. Many thanks for providing such super good recipes, I love to cook and will try them all. Signed, Nancy D.

I made some more traditional pigs feet scrapple today. I have also seen scrapple with rolled oats instead of corn meal.I honestly don't care what you use to make it as long as it's a crisp meaty treat. I recommend pouring some nice honey on it.

I grew up eating scrapple and love it. It always seemed to make such a mess when frying, due to the splattering, that I started baking it instead. It's really very easy and produces a nice crisp crust. Just slice and place on a parchment lined tray.Spraying the parchment paper with a cooking spray makes the removal easier. Bake at 450 degrees for about 25 minutes.I do believe that corn is soaked in lye, not lime to remove the outer shell.

OH John, I'm shattered...If it wasn't for Pa Dutch scrapple I would not be here. I was a depression baby (1928) and scrapple was a mainstay on the menu at our house. Along with shho-fly pie. Guess you hate that also.Just ribbin ya dude, but be carefull what you say about Pa Dutch, we're big and MEAN LOL

Chef, I come from South West England, and my Mum used to make a white pudding called Hog's Pudding. It was made with a pig's head, boiled and all the meat removed. Then groats were boiled in the same stock, (similar to porridge oats), then mix in the pork, with loads of salt and pepper. When it cooled, she cut it into slices and fried it with bacon and eggs. OMG. My mouth is watering.